


the life we've built

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: College Professor Aichi, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Married Life, Middle-Aged Kaichi, Professional Chef Kai, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29505282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: When they were young, they struggled and fell but helped each other back up again. Now Kai and Aichi can grow older together in peace and enjoy normal evenings of Kai's cooking, Aichi's cuddling, and falling asleep together.
Relationships: Kai Toshiki/Sendou Aichi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	the life we've built

**Author's Note:**

> i really just wanted to write some middle aged husbands doing middle aged things and being unabashedly in love with each other. there's not really any plot, it's just An Average Evening at the kaichi household filled with a lot of my headcanons for their married domesticity.

The modest, perfectly clean apartment is silent, save for the soft, rapid _clack clack_ of a knife against a cutting board as Kai minces garlic for curry. He pauses for a moment to nudge his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand before returning to his task, methodically adding ingredients. The curry is almost done when the front door opens.

“I’m home.”

“Welcome home,” Kai calls back, stirring the roux in slow strokes. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

There’s the sound of a heavy bag flopping against the wall by the front door; a few seconds later, Aichi shuffles into the kitchen in his slippers.

“Mm, it smells so good.” He hugs Kai from behind around the waist. “Your curry is the best.”

Kai turns his head so Aichi can give him a quick kiss. “I made extra so you can have it for lunch tomorrow, too.”

Aichi makes a noise of excitement and pulls himself up by Kai’s shoulders to kiss Kai’s cheek. “How did I luck out with the best husband in the world?”

“That’s my line.” Kai says it teasingly now, but it isn’t untrue. For years, he had struggled to understand why Aichi—passionate, brilliant, hard-working, thoughtful Aichi—would settle for someone like him. But twenty years have passed since they got married in their mid-twenties and Kai has long since accepted that Aichi wasn’t going anywhere. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect at times, but Kai wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. “Would you mind setting the table?”

“Of course.”

As Aichi places dishes on the table, Kai finishes the curry and tastes it; not too sweet and not too spicy, but a pleasant combination of the two flavors. The roux has thickened perfectly, the potatoes have the ideal texture.

Aichi grabs a beer for the two of them (“it was a long day”) and they sit down to eat. He has a dreamy look in his face as he spoons the curry into his mouth. Kai has cooked for him nearly every night for the past ten years, since he’d retired from the Vanguard Pro Leagues, yet Aichi is genuinely, emphatically thrilled with Kai’s cooking every single time. It’s one of the most endearing things about him.

“I know we just had curry last week, but I was a little tired after work today,” Kai apologizes.

Aichi swallows his food and shakes his head. “How could I be disappointed in getting a homecooked meal from the top chef of one of Tokyo’s most esteemed restaurants every night?”

Kai smiles into his beer. “You said you had a long day.”

“Yeah.” Aichi sighs. “I wanted to work on my lecture today, but I spent most of the day on a video call…”

As Aichi launches into his frustrations with some overseas agency that the University of Tokyo astronomy department had partnered with, Kai listens attentively. Some of what Aichi is talking about makes no sense to him—he didn’t take physics in high school and never went to college—but he understands Aichi’s frustration with people not taking care of their responsibilities. He dealt with that enough at his restaurant, and he wasn’t even dealing with something as complex as astrophysics. Aichi had spent too long and worked too hard getting his PhD to be looked down on by foreigners. It rankles Kai.

“And since I’m mostly fluent in English, I’m the one who has to be the intermediary on these conversations.” Aichi sighs again and takes another bite of curry. “Sorry.”

“No worries.” Kai finishes his curry and waits for Aichi to finish. “You can have another beer, I’ll do the cleanup tonight…”

“Are you sure?” Aichi sounds weary.

“Yeah. You can do the laundry this weekend.”

Aichi grimaces but nods. “Okay. If you need help let me know?”

Kai won’t need help. It doesn’t take too much effort to wash the dishes, and he can tell that Aichi is drained and frustrated from the day. So as he puts the leftovers together for Aichi’s lunch the next day and starts washing dishes, Aichi takes another beer from the fridge and flops on the sofa. The sound of a Japanese game show floats into the kitchen. When they first moved in together after Aichi was accepted into the prestigious University of Tokyo astronomy graduate program, Aichi didn’t watch television much; often, between his studies and his postgrad research, he didn’t have time. Kai didn’t watch it either, but he wasn’t home much during Vanguard circuit season and he didn’t like seeing himself on television. Now, however, Aichi likes to unwind watching variety shows and having a beer before bed. (“It helps me sleep,” he explained once. As he used to have terrible nightmares until he was almost thirty, anything that helped him sleep was fine with Kai.)

The sound on the television quiets. “Hey, Kai-kun?” Aichi calls from the living room.

“Yeah?”

“One of my undergraduate students told me today that he was your biggest fan.”

This is not remotely what Kai had been expecting, and he can’t help but laugh. “Oh?”

“He saw that picture of us from when we were kids. You know, me, you Misaki-san, Kamui-kun. That Q4 picture. Said he’s seen every pro match you’ve ever played in and even plays sometimes at one of Misaki-san’s shops.”

“I retired from the pro scene before he even graduated high school,” Kai replies, amused.

Soft footsteps approach. Aichi rounds the corner and leans against the counter. “He saw lots of recordings.”

“So he must have seen you fight, too.”

“He was less impressed with me.” Aichi smiles and steps around Kai to help dry the dishes. “You were so cool, and I was pretty scrawny-looking.”

Kai laughs again. “What did you say?”

Aichi grins and pokes his own stomach. “Told him I was no longer scrawny because my _husband_ Kai Toshiki, of whom I have _always_ been the biggest fan, feeds me like a king every night.”

They both laugh as they finish putting away dishes together, and Aichi leads Kai back to the living room by the hand. Kai can feel the cold metal of Aichi’s wedding band—Aichi wears it all the time—and feels a wave of affection hit him. He had proposed to Aichi in bed in the middle of the night on a Valentine’s Day two decades ago when he was drunk and emotional and from the moment they were wed in a quiet ceremony with just a handful of friends and Aichi’s family, Aichi would only take his wedding ring off to take a shower or perform some kind of experiment at work that would react badly with silver.

Oh, he had loved Kai so much, for so long, and Kai’s heart still aches with tenderness from how much Aichi wants the world to know it.

They curl up together on the sofa, Aichi leaning into Kai’s chest as they watch contestants on the game show perform increasingly ridiculous stunts for an arbitrary number of points. Kai strokes Aichi’s hair, absently thinking that it was getting long enough to pull back in a ponytail again.

“Kai-kun,” Aichi murmurs after about ten minutes of silence between them, “we should get a pet.”

Kai kisses the top of Aichi’s head. “We can’t have pets in this apartment.”

“Let’s buy a house and get a dog, then. And two cats.”

“Oh? What will we name them?”

“The dog has to be named Wingal.” Aichi scrunches up his face in thought. “I don’t care what the cats are named, I just want a dog named Wingal.”

Kai laughs quietly. “Always thinking about Vanguard, even now.”

“It’s an important part of me. Of us.”

“Yeah.”

“You heard there’s going to be a new format coming out soon?”

“Gaillard mentioned it.”

“Miss it?”

“The Pro League?”

“Mm.”

“Sometimes.” Kai strokes Aichi’s cheek with his thumb. “But there was always only one fighter I really wanted to fight.”

Aichi leans into Kai so heavily they fall back onto the sofa. Aichi lays on top of Kai, using Kai’s chest as a pillow; Kai wraps his arms around Aichi, one hand in Aichi’s hair and the other on the small of his back.

“I love you, Kai-kun,” Aichi whispers.

“I love you, Aichi.”

No matter how many times he hears it, no matter how many times he says it, the words never lose meaning. Kai had heard as a child that sometimes when people who love each other get older, they fall out of love, but he knows that they will never lose what they have. Kai loves Aichi just as much in his forties as he did at sixteen, when he first understood what love was, as he stood atop that rooftop under the collapsing remnants of Link Joker and listened to Aichi tell him that he wanted them to share their future together.

_Imagine it. I’m by your side._

Kai had never let go of that image. He never will. He will continue to wake up in the morning to Aichi softly snoring next to him, he will continue to make Aichi breakfast and coax him out of bed with coffee and have dinner ready when he gets home and he will continue to support Aichi in everything he does, just as Aichi has always supported Kai’s dreams.

His eyes water. Maybe, in his older years, he’s getting too sentimental. Maybe it’s because he never thought, as a young man, that he could have, _deserved_ to have this _._

But he does, and he will continue to cherish this life they’ve built together until they’re both old men who are still passionately, unabashedly in love.


End file.
